Lights, iPad, Action: Original, Rich Multimedia Coming Soon to a Course Near You!

By Wesley Fryer On February 28, 2013 · · 2 Comments

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These are my notes from the session “Lights, iPad, Action: Original, Rich Multimedia Coming Soon to a Course Near You!” at the 2013 Heartland eLearning Conference at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. MY THOUGHTS AND IDEAS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Presenters are Mark Jones, Mitchell Green, Shanda Hensel, and Darren Denham.

First comments from Mark Jones

this is presented by the UCO Technology Resource Center
- we will focus on iPads and the iMovie app today
- we have a heavy focus now at UCO on iPads

We do “iPad Academy” training that is a 3 day workshop
- big portion is preparing faculty to create their own original media with the iPad

It does take time to create your own media
- in this session I will assume you are not creating your own media now on the iPad

Grand Hollywood ideas of students experiencing lectures:
- Stand and Dliver

I was high school science teacher, realizing that my lectures weren’t be best learning delivery mode
- “like it or not, you are just a resource”

MY THOUGHT: I REALLY DISAGREE WITH MARK ON THIS POINT. TEACHERS ARE AND CERTAINLY CAN BE FAR MORE THAN WIDGETS. IF ALL TEACHERS ARE JUST RESOURCES, THEN COULDN’T WE JUST DISPENSE WITH ALL FACE-TO-FACE LEARNING AND JUST GET ONLINE FOR COMPUTER-AIDED INSTRUCTION? CERTAINLY IN HIGHER ED THERE IS A TENDENCY TO LOOK AT TEACHERS AS WIDGETS, LIKE THE ADJUNCT FACULTY WHO GET ‘PLUGGED IN’ AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ACADEMIC FOOD CHAIN TO TEACH PRE-DEFINED COURSES. AS EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONALS, HOWEVER, WE HAVE FAR MORE POTENTIAL TO BE ‘JUST’ A LEARNING RESOURCE. WE CAN AND DO SERVE AS LEARNING RESOURCES, BUT WE SHOULD NEVER OVERLOOK OR UNDERVALUE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TEACHER / INSTRUCTOR / PROFESSOR RELATIONSHIP WITH STUDENTS. MARK’S COMMENT REMINDS ME OF THE IMPORTANT REPORT, “THE WIDGET EFFECT.” MARK’S COMMENT BELIES AND REFLECTS THE FUNDAMENTAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT TEACHERS WHICH ARE HIGHLIGHTED BY THIS REPORT.

iPad + Media Authoring App = Production studio for Anyone

Simple apps
- iMovie ($5)
- Animoto Video Maker (free)
- Sock Puppets (free but in-app purchases)

Complex
- Pinnacle Studio ($13)
- ReelDirector ($2)

Other options

- Puppet Pals HD Director’s Pass ($3)
- iMotion Remote for stop motion capture (free – but costs $2 to export videos)
- Toontastic All Access ($13 – no in-app purchases required)

the most important tool is your imagination

MY THOUGHT: I’D ACTUALLY CALL THIS ‘THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT’ RATHER THAN ‘TOOL’

One approach
1- identify a topic
2- storyboard the project
3- capture video and images
4- insert footage into project
5- add transitions
6- add titles
7- add narration
8- add music and/or sound effects
9- export

App: TV Studio is a teleprompter ($15)

MY COMMENT: I LIKE THE i-Prompt APP FOR IPAD (FREE)

MY COMMENT: I LIKE

Keep it Brief (less than 7 minutes)
- there is a reason TV does 7 minutes of content and then 3 minutes of commercials
- keep attention spans in mind
- keep it focused
- keep it quality (especially the audio)
- keep it relevant

Technorati Tags: ios, ipad, video

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Mark Jones

Wes, thanks for attending the session. I want to clarify the “teachers are a resource” topic, which you are commenting on out of context. You misunderstood that the point I was making is that regardless of whether we as educators like it or not, often from the STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE we are an instructional resource to aid him or her in achieving their immediate goal in the course, which is successful completion of the course. This is certainly exacerbated when the primary instructional strategy employed is lecture (keep in mind that this presentation was geared towards a higher education audience). This point set up the next comments I made regarding the importance of each educator to recognize their “value added” to the course they are teaching, because it is from that value added that is what makes them more than just another resource. I certainly agree with you that teachers MUST be more than a “widget” for their students…

- Mark Jones
http://wfryer.wpengine.com Wesley Fryer

Mark: It’s not just “often the students’ perspective,” I think a predominant perception both in K-12 education as well as higher education is that “teachers are just resources.” That perception is at the heart of “The Widget Effect” report. I don’t think I took your comment out of context in the presentation. Your statement was, “like it or not, you are just a resource.” I didn’t hear you say, “students perceive you to be just a resource, but you have an opportunity to be more than that.”

I certainly agree with that rephrasing of this position more, and if it was your intent to communicate that, I’m glad for your clarification. It’s a huge issue, however, and is the reason we have nationwide change in most states (if not all) for teacher evaluation systems at the K12 level.

I think MOOCs also challenge our perceptions of teachers and the “value add” of individual educators. If educators are “just resources” then many can be replaced by large, scaled-up mega-courses which enroll hundreds if not thousands of students. I personally feel that MOOCs have a great potential niche in education, particularly higher education, but potentially even in K-12 at the secondary level.

I was really excited to learn a new trick with iMovie for iPad in your session which I didn’t know previously (swipe up in a clip to make a multi-second still) and am really glad you all are encouraging UCO faculty to embrace iPads as creative tools both for the creation of curriculum resources and for student assignments. There are large university courses where the adjunct instructors may feel like “widgets” in the higher ed machine and students may also perceive them that way. That spills over into other courses too. It’s a good discussion to engage in, and I appreciate your follow up. As educators we all certainly have the capacity to be far more than “widgets” and it’s important to provide (as your team is) tools and pedagogical vision for how professors can creatively realize that vision.